Chasing away the proverbial Monday morning blues, the opening of an Evening Learning Centre (ELC) in Sion yesterday morning offered a ray of hope and was a small but significant shout-out for educational equality and inclusivity for the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer (LGBTQ) community. This centre, opened by Deutsche Bank as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative and Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) Masoom, which works in the space of empowering, transforming and strengthening the night school system,  offers educational support to sexual minorities, to help them finish their Std X (SSC) and National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) examination. The term sexual minorities broadly is used to refer to lesbian, gay, bisexual or non-heterosexual individuals. It can also refer to transgender, non-binary or intersex individuals.

The inaugural event started with a speaker from the sexual minorities community, Praveen S who said, “I want to thank those responsible for creating this space for us. I use the pronouns he/she/they so I identify as non-binary and represent the LGBTQ community. While such opportunities bring us some cheer, we must remember that as a community, we are still very far from the mainstream.”